Featuring the author William Fischel, Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College; with comments by Matt Yglesias, Executive Editor, Vox Media; and Robert Dietz, Vice President, Tax and Market Analysis, National Association of Home Builders; moderated by Mark Calabria, Director, Financial Regulation Studies, Cato Institute.
Zoning has shaped American cities since 1916, when New York City
adopted the first comprehensive ordinance. It has remained a
popular and widely used institution, particularly for homeowners
wishing to protect the value of their homes. As values have soared
in recent years, however, this protection has accelerated to the
degree that new housing development has become unreasonably
difficult and costly. The widespread Not in My Backyard (NIMBY)
syndrome is driven by voters’ excessive concern about their home
values and creates barriers to growth that reach beyond individual
communities. Those barriers contribute to suburban sprawl, entrench
income and racial segregation, retard regional immigration to the
most productive cities, add to national wealth inequality, and slow
the growth of the American economy. Zoning Rules, an
update of Fischel’s 1985 classic book The Economics of
Zoning, examines this history while offering solutions to the
unintended consequences of zoning.
